Wise people say we only romanticize summer

Because it’s the only chance we get to rest, so I 

Spend my waking days with the sun, stare at it

Softly through a pail of water. 

Warmth indicates an openness to be loved, so I always

Leave my cold palms up on the table as I sit next to you. 

And they stay there unmoving, even as you move away. 

The next time I lift them is to rummage through the 

Shelves of the words I never got to say and 

Stopped saying.

They glimmer as much as dead stars can shine. I

Fuse them in a stellar collision, make them crash, and

Burn in a blaze of glory and salt. It is the closest to

I have always loved you that I will ever say. 

See, the sun has never belonged to 

anyone. 

So I lay here paralyzed from the thought of you.

Yet the sun remains a star, a wrenching reminder

That their place has always been in the sky

As you remain in my mind

Because only in smeared dreams

Could I find what would have been memories

And I swore I would forget

The words at the back of my shelves,

The way your eyes turned into crescent moons,

The feeling of your fingers brushing against mine

When we waited for spring at that bus stop.

Your palms stayed up, shielded by gloves,

Yet you remarked they were cold.

We held the sun in between our hands,

As spring came to us.

And I wondered,

Did you feel the warmth as well?